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Need I repeat myself? Greentech will succeed when and where it’s profitable.
Another venture founded in science and technology that papier-mache pundits lampooned as unrealistic and too far ahead of its time. |
Despite the widely publicized “moonshine” remark a few years ago by Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, the company has spent several years exploring various fuel alternatives, according to one of its top research officials.
“We literally looked at every option we could think of, with several key parameters in mind,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president for research and development at Exxon’s research and engineering unit. “Scale was the first. For transportation fuels, if you can’t see whether you can scale a technology up, then you have to question whether you need to be involved at all.”
He added, “I am not going to sugarcoat this — this is not going to be easy.” Any large-scale commercial plants to produce algae-based fuels are at least 5 to 10 years away, Dr. Jacobs said.
Oilgae-powered Mercedes at the Sundance Festival
But if it proves a bona fide effort, Exxon’s move into biofuels, long the preserve of venture capital firms and biotech start-ups, could provide a big push to the Obama administration’s policy of encouraging more renewable energy…
Exxon’s partnership with Synthetic Genomics is also a vote of confidence in the work of Dr. Venter, a maverick scientist best known for decoding the human genome in the 1990s. In recent years, he has focused his attention on a search for micro-organisms that could be turned into fuel…
Algal biofuel, sometimes nicknamed oilgae by environmentalists, is a promising technology. Fuels derived from algae have molecular structures that are similar to petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and would be compatible with the existing transportation infrastructure, according to Exxon.
It hasn’t been too many months since Venter just smiled and said something like, “you’ll be hearing about genomic designs in biofuel – soon”.
Creepy.
Yep, when profitable/prictical, private $ pour in. When unphofitable/impractical tax $ pour in… Holds true in most cases.
So,
OIL corp is going to look into alternative fuels?
The corp that takes a penny of Crude, and makes $1 from it?
They are going to take a MAJOR food stock for fish/whales, and change it to FUEL??
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/08/urine-power.html
I think I would look into waste management, and converting it to POWER.
“One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses,”
My money says ALL 600 million is under the table government subsidies.
#3, “Greentech will succeed when and where it’s profitable.”
And in all other cases, we’ll just have the government come in and make the current tech artificially unprofitable.
sorry, my post was not directed at ECA but at the OP.
There are so many issues with algal-based biofuels in terms of costs of production, scalability and energy balance that I don’t know where to even begin other than perhaps with a suggestion that people who think this is a workable plan visit Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Energy Blog and review the algal-fuel posts.
See the following link
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/search/label/algal%20biodiesel
I read where you can produce 20,000 gallons of oil per acre of algae using new techniques. They don’t use food stock for animals. It is produced in farms on land.
Quick question. Isn’t this the equivalent of a “fossil” fuel? It’s a hydrocarbon. CO2 problems are still there…
don’t give in! I’ve seen too many good ideas get bought out and then put on the shelf.
So, hardly anyone here knows anything about business – and even fewer know anything about chemistry.
OK. How about Craig Venter is the AntiChrist. There’s something you all know about.
Does Patrick have anything to contribute to society besides sarcasm and snark?
And when will Exxon get their algae depletion allowance through Congress?
Yep, it’s a CO2 producing HC fuel. Eco-nuts will never go for it.
8,
yep, I can see it..
I also see the amounts of fresh water needed to keep it growing.
Have you ever heard of an OLD law, called water rights?
Those old laws are 1/2 STUPID, 1/2 idiotic..
If you figure that EACH state would require a minimum of 1 million gallons per day..
And your growing time, processing time, and area for even 1 process of 1 million gallons of fuel. You probably couldnt get enough land, nor enough water.
The difference in this fuel (vs a fossil fuel) is that the CO2 produced during combustion is CO2 that was *ALREADY IN THE ATMOSPHERE* … unlike burning Oil, which is releasing CO2 that was *TRAPPED IN THE GROUND*
If the fuel has a positive energy balance (meaning it generates MORE fuel than is used in production) then the process results in NO NET CO2 being released into the atmosphere.
Think of Algal Fuel as a short-term Solar-to-Fuel converter.
And I don’t believe they’re proposing gathering sea algae (i.e. stealing food from the oceanic food chain) … they’re going to be growing specially designed algae in tanks to use as fuel stock. IIRC, some of the algae are 50% oil by weight.
#15 – Thanks
#14, I was under the impression that a major critique of the ethanol push is the enormous amount of water required to produce it.
ECA, I don’t think that the algae requires fresh water. In fact, I think they were investigating seawater pipelines to get this “free” water to inland deserts…. where the growing conditions are quite favorable for the algae. This would use otherwise un-arable land, and you don’t have to worry about a spill contaminating your local environment with GM algae.
They’ve also looked at “floating farms” that could exist in the ocean (excellent growing conditions!)
#16, np. ANY biofuel that has a positive energy balance produces no net CO2, not just algae.
FWIW, I believe both Ethanol and Biodiesel CAN have a marginally-positive energy balance, depending on their feedstock and production techniques. Algae seems on pace to have a much, much better balance than either of these fuels. So far…
This is financed by the oil companies, therefore it is propaganda, not science.
#19 – This could be interesting if the cost/gallon at the pump is reasonable.
granted, i haven’t read the entire article associated with this, but this kind of move makes me highly suspicious. Exxon, of ALL the oil companies seems like they would be the ones to sink a big chunk of change into such an R&D effort, but only so they could have controlling interest and assume control of patents that they could quietly shut down as a “failed venture” in one year….in order to make petroleum prices skyrocket.
If you are Exxon, the only way to make money is to pour carbon into the atmosphere.
Yeah, just as all the major US automakers probably promised to make “greener” cars, in exchange for tax subsidies. And have now all bailed on that (still keeping the subsudies), after filling for bankruptsy protection. We’ll be lucky to ever see more Hybrids, let alone the Chevy “Volt” (all electrics).
18,
so you want to pump Tons of salt water into the dessert.
Cant use metal tanks, not with salt water.
create a FLOW of clean salt water.
dispose of the salt water??
Disposing of it will be 2 problems. Algae seeds itself, so you need to capture the spores on draining. During the collection you have salt. Lots of salt.
You are talking about 50 million gallons of fuel to produce per day. times 365 days. to even put a DENT in the amount of fuel the USA uses. 20,000 gallons per acre for 1 day would be 2500 acres. times 365 days..912500 acres, or about 1500 square miles of processing and plant area.
When I say 50 million gallons per day, this is a LOW number. considering all the purposes and use we get from Crude oil processing. From fuels to TAR to paint and bug spray.
#25, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a fair amount of metal tanks floating around the ocean… what do they call them? Oh Yeah. BOATS. What a silly argument. I didn’t say they solved all the problems, I said they’re looking for solutions.
And for everyone skeptical of oil companies funding the research: If you knew, KNEW that the resource you were selling was going to run out, even in the long term, wouldn’t you be looking for ways to replace that resource? Especially if that replacement was continuously renewable? 100 years from now, we won’t be talking about OIL companies, we’ll be talking about ENERGY companies. (the smart OIL companies already are.)
The algae systems are all closed loops for water–open for sunlight and co2. Co-locations with carbon emitting manufacturing plants is another plus of these systems.
Still–the need for sunlight is limiting which is why I think bacteria based process will win in the end==big dark vats converting all kinds of waste into fuel. It will be a race with more efficient solar cells. Big Energy will want bio fuels because they are capital intensive and centralized. We should push for solar–decentralized, home based, carbon free. I’m thinking diamond coated substrates that also work on moonlight and happy thoughts.
26,
Metal and salt water causing electrolysis..and RUST.. and those ships out in the water, made of metal, HAVE LOTS of paint on them to protect them from the SALT water.
Let’s put it this way. At $100 or more a barrel a lot of things are cheaper that oil.
Liquefied coal would be much cheaper than this but that isn’t going to be allowed even though we have plenty of coal.
The green slime should be carbon neutral and I think we can count of the present Congress and President to make sure that fossil fuels costs more or they are rationed.
Not sure Crap and trade hasn’t made it through the Senate yet.
# 9 Patrick:
You’ll be happy to hear that CO2 is not a pollutant per se. The problem is the amount of CO2 that WAS NOT in the atmosphere but rather was “frozen” in fossil fuels being poured into the atmosphere. While the environment can happily cope with CO2 that’s already floating around, it can’t cope with the zillions of tons of CO2 being removed from underground and polluting the atmosphere.
Maybe a Star Wars analogy? You’re Darth Vader. The rebels are a nuisance but while Han Solo is frozen in carbonite it’s ok, you can deal with them. He gets out though, you’re in trouble and soon the Death Star goes kaboom. Makes sense now? 😉